Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 676: Authentic Wisdom in the Age of AI with David Nichtern and Duncan Trussell

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

A DTFH Special Event! This is a Dharma Moon webinar hosted by Duncan and show favorite David Nichtern. Click here to learn more about the Dharma Moon 100-Hour Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training. DTFH listeners get $500 off with the code DTFH at checkout. (Please note that even though the course started March 21, you can still register and we will send you the recordings from the first weekend to catch you up.) Also - Join Duncan and David for a live Meditation Retreat in upstate NY on April 30 – May 4, 2025. More info and registration here.

I'll be talking more about it as the evening goes on, but I'd like to start right away with our friend, dear friend Duncan Trussell, who's joining us again for another webinar here. Duncan, how are you? Oh, I'm great. It's always great to see you, David. Yeah, I see your guitar hanging from the back there. Which guitar is that? Now, that's an ancient guitar. I don't use that anymore. That is a classic decorative guitar that so many of us like to hang to imply that maybe we can play guitar. And it's never great to mention a hanging guitar. I feel like he's a musician.

In the biz, we call them guitar owners. Have you ever heard that phrase? Yeah. And I am a guitar owner, proud owner of a guitar. I can play campfire chords. I didn't know this is Shane Duncan about his lack of guitar skill from a great guitar player. Guitar, oh, well, campfire chords.

I never really heard that expression before. But here's the thing, Duncan, we always kind of come up with some topic to get us going. And we had this idea for, well, who's gonna really need meditation teachers in this age of AI, which is coming on so fast. And I just wanna tell one little anecdote and then launch us into the topic.

We thought, well, what if Duncan and I talk about, you know, the role of a meditation teacher in the age of AI when AI are starting to take over roles of people's assistants, lovers, teachers, and so forth. But we couldn't come up with a good name for the program. So I said, well, why don't we ask AI? And they came up with the program title of Authentic Wisdom in the Age of AI. So there's a little disclosure there that the title came that way. So what do you make of all this, Duncan? If let's say somebody never heard of anything that's happening right now, how would you describe what's happening on planet

Earth right now with AI and all this stuff? Okay, yeah. This is, well, I mean, this is, I think, to give it some context, we all know that there have been like these massive changes in human society, technologically based massive changes in human society. And we've already been through one, I guess you could argue, which is the internet, social media, the interconnectedness through that. And that's pretty incredible to get to experience the dawn of any of these is incredible. So the Industrial Revolution, of course, we got the agrarian revolution, you know.

And so you can sort of look at like these moments as moments where everything, the way things are done, the way humans conducted themselves, culture, rituals, everything undergoes a seismic shift. And, but generally what's happening right now, I think is distinct in the fact that to go through two of these sorts of revolutions in a lifetime is unprecedented. And I don't even think we're close to integrating what's happened via the interconnectedness

of the internet. We don't even know what it is yet. We're just barely understanding it. And every few months, there's a new problem that emerges based on this brand new technology. And so it's fascinating to see another one suddenly appear in a way that was very similar to the internet. People were whispering about it, talking about it.

You would go to your, if you're my age, you would go to the, uh, your college library to use the internet before that. I mean, just the idea of doing what we're doing right now with science fiction. You can watch, uh, um, oh gosh, what's the Stanley Cooper movie? And I, it's one of the great movies and I'm mortified that in this moment I can't remember it. What is it? My God, where the monkey throws the bone in the air? 2001. God, everyone forgive me.

Just, I've been swinging with my kids in the gym. Sorry. The dad's that monkey. Yes. And so- Duncan, I love that description of 2001 in the blurb. It's the movie where the monkey throws the bone in the air. That's really good.

Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. And what a great, and there's a wonderful moment in it where the protagonist is getting this Zoom, I guess we call it a Zoom phone call with his family. The moon is in the background. Yep. And this is the feeling of loneliness in that moment is incredible as this person is about

to say goodbye to everything. And anyway, the point is we're going through now another revolution that's going to happen much faster than the internet, meaning that integration of this new technology into society is going to be like all other moments like this incredibly topsy turvy. It's going to cause all kinds of absurd problems that we haven't even thought up yet. Things are going to emerge that are both incredible, like the protein folding AI that Google is using to understand how DNA sort of spins a human being or any living thing out into the world. This is going to lead to probably cures for cancer and a lot of diseases that were death sentences or

we thought incurable. It's going to lead to this kind of bizarre autonomy over how we look, who we are. And then there's going to be a massive wave of unemployment, which is already happening, already seeing that. And then ultimately, Altman, I think, said that this is going to take down capitalism because via capitalism itself, which is that by integrating this technology to increase the profit margin, eventually the disruption to economies is going to be so severe that no one will be able to buy the thing that whatever the company is selling. Because there's not going to be like, if people don't have jobs, then the entire way we conduct ourselves right now is going

to have to be reshaped, value will have to be reshaped. And so there's a million more things I could list. But that- How about jumping right over the shark here? What about teaching? We want to get to meditation teaching at the role of the meditation teachers an important part of this conversation.

So far I haven't seen that. I haven't seen a situation which the AI function as a mentor, a teacher, but I know people, there are therapists and things like that that are AI aren't there already? Absolutely, yeah know people, there are therapists and things like that that are AI, aren't there already? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, there are. And again, I think the way to sort of look

at the trajectory of what's happening is not, I haven't seen it, but go back to the earliest, and you know a lot about this, you were working on synths and stuff. So go back and think about in those days, the tech you were working with, and how quickly it evolved, how quickly, you know, these like massive synthesizers that no doubt required bizarre chips and weird parts are generally integrated into like a computer now.

I mean, and if you took just the standard, you know standard synths that are on any digital audio workstation and brought those back to the 70s, it would blow people's minds. They wouldn't be able to understand that you could put these into a laptop. And so that's, I think, a good way to sort of understand the trajectory that this stuff is on. You know what it can't do? It can't write jokes. I have yet to find an AI that can write a good joke. And trust me, every month I'm looking.

But it just isn't capable of that yet. But what it can't- Have you tried? Have you asked it to? Of course. Are you kidding? I'm all you know, I'm always testing the waters. But what I have noticed is not that it's getting better at writing jokes, but it is getting funnier. And the the what that means, I would say is whoever you are, whatever.

And I know this isn't why we're talking about this, but whatever you think your job is, it's not safe. All things are going to be co-opted by this technology. But this doesn't have to be necessarily a grim thing. It's just reality. And in questions like these, I love them because it sort of brings up more of a question about like, how limited is the Dharma? In other words, this idea, which is not just in Buddhism, but across the board, the role of the teacher, the intermediary, the priest, the cleric, the shaman, these are precious human sacred,

like sometimes divine positions. Someone is a conduit or someone is in a lineage or someone is, you know, passing this infinite torch that traces its way all the way back to an enlightened person. And the notion that this could be potentially like replaced by a machine, I think, is, could make some people queasy. And it is people are constantly, I mean, it's one of the ongoing topics in this discussion is what is sentience? What is consciousness? And how could it be that something that is just using an algorithm to figure out the

probability of the next right word? How could this thing be a teacher or self-aware or have any of the qualities one might expect from a guru or teacher? You know, Duncan, in the early days of the onset of Buddhism and the Buddha Dharma into the West, my teacher, Chung Porinbache, said, I wonder how many of you would be seeking instruction from me if you had met me in a restaurant. And then there was an iteration called Buddha Dharma without credentials. So the idea that the credentials, you know, people unroll their scrolls and their credentials and, you know,

degrees and whatever it is. To become a Kenpo, like in the Buddhist tradition, takes 15 years, and I don't think they have weekends off. What about the absence of credentials? When you're studying Dharma, what's the goal? What's the objective of studying meditation and the Dharma? Why would somebody do that in the first place? The goal? Well, I mean, I think that's a great question because initially I think that that goal would

be probably different for so many people in the sense that in the initial study, at least from my experience of it, there's some sense of this must be what it is. And so you have a goal based on a misunderstanding or a lack of data regarding the thing itself. And so you go into it with some idea of, you know, it ranges and I think I've had all of the goals from I just, I'm just so sick of being an asshole to, to, to, you know, you might not want to admit it to yourself, but you think you think it. You think there's going to be some kind of extra, like, this is a new tail feather I could waggle in my mating ritual, or this is going to help me pursue some line of work, or this will help me gain focus as I study some other thing.

I think all of these things are perfectly good reasons, none of them are wrong. Because, you know, it feel, my feeling with it is there's so much compassion in the way a teacher like you articulates the thing based on the student. You know what I mean? The sense you seem to have of me when we've had these conversations and in that an exchange happens that opens up different points of view that I never even considered. And then there's an invitation in there to sort of explore that further. And then suddenly whatever those initial goals were, you're not really thinking about them as much because you've started to have some kind of experiential sense of what this is.

And then that, so to me, I don't know that I could say that there's a singular goal in the sense that thus far my goal-based things related to this have shifted here and there. I don't know if that's trying to talk about it. Do you mind saying more about the shift as a student, as all of us are? Shifted from what to what, would you say? Okay, sure. I mean, here's one, like, so sort of like you read about emptiness or you read about This quality that allows phenomena to be perceived and maybe this quality, this awareness isn't quite what you thought it was.

And so then via meditation, via some process, you begin to have these little glimpses of something that are incredible. Where you come in and where the books come in is suddenly there's a reference point here for this stuff. You've maybe read about this shit before, but there's nothing you've experienced. It's like someone describing the Grand Canyon or something like that, you know? Which is great, I mean, a great writer can really make you feel like you're at the Grand Canyon, but you're not at the Grand Canyon. And so then suddenly this thing might happen and that is such a spectacular moment.

And even though you've read, don't get caught by these moments or whatever, you're still like, whoa, this is what I'm into now. This is all I want. I thought I liked LSD, oh no what I'm into now. This is all I want. I thought I liked LSD. Oh no, I like emptiness. That's what the LSD was giving me glimpses of, and this is free, and I don't have to get an ear beating

from an acid dealer to achieve it. And so this, suddenly the shift, the self-interest shifts in a different way. Now you're going after the mystical experience or something like that. And so that is it. Duncan, so would you, when you said, like you're tired of being an asshole,

that kind of approach where we feel awkward or we feel like we're not quite synchronized properly, we're tripping over ourselves. I mean, as you know, the Buddhist teachings really start from the notion that somebody is a little bit out of sync. Yeah. And they notice that.

In other words, we're trying to be graceful. We're trying to be cool. We're trying to be smooth. And we notice that we're tripping over ourselves. We have ideas about things that turn out to be not completely accurate premise for going forward. We feel a little awkward, we feel anxious,

and rather than trying to suppress that or conquer that, somebody says, what about working with that more and going directly, bringing some awareness to that without trying first off to modulate it? So this is the Buddhist path starts there. It's very unusual that way. It doesn't start with heaven. It starts with whatever experience you're actually having. And then noticing the richness of that, the potential richness of that rather than this

is something we have to fix that's broken. Would you say that that was a good starting point for most of us? Well, I think that's one of the unique things that starts getting repeated and unique in the sense that in our culture right now, there's a whole genre of self-help that is really kind of inviting you to wage a war against yourself. Everything about you is messed up. And you know what I mean? And the answer isn't some nonsense self-love crap that a praying man has told you during an ayahuasca trip. The answer is destroy your ego, baby. Everyone's destroying their ego. I mean, how many times anyone, any psychonauts or psychedelic communities, how many times have you heard

someone yap about they blew their ego up or flattened their ego? The language is like warlike. You're at war with yourself now. And whereas you start hearing this idea of, and it's not necessarily like, yeah, just be an asshole, keep hurting people around you because yeah, that's what it's like. It's more what happens if in your exploration of the self, you sort of let go of the conflictflict can you just be with this thing and? That Duncan do you do you do you think an AI coming back to our theme? would be capable of

Feeling the energy coming off Medication student in this case and saying let's just slow this down a little bit. Does the AI have that level of emotional intelligence, discernment of energy, could it? And at that point, what is the essence of that wisdom? Is it wisdom or is it just a mechanical reaction to those know your you know those rings that you wear the o-ring oh yeah reading your your stats and saying

you're wait David I'm your I'm your AI meditation teacher your pulse is too rapid your speech is is is quick why don't we just sit and breathe for a minute is the AI capable of that kind of level of empathy and connectivity? I as far as I'm aware of this doesn't exist because if it did there'd be some app that Is AI capable of that kind of level of empathy and connectivity? As far as I'm aware, this doesn't exist because if it did, there'd be some app that you had to pay $20 a month to hang out with this freaking thing. So as far as I'm aware, this doesn't exist. But I think the deeper sort of analysis of what's happening could start, from a Buddhist

perspective, could start with like from a Buddhist perspective, could start with the idea of interdependency. I think that, you know, we're talking about this, I mean, I don't know which, I think it's Thich Nhat Hanh in one of his books is sort of as inviting you to imagine all the things that went into a book, the book itself, the pages, the trees, the sun,

the person who took the tree down, all that stuff is always sort of articulating like, you know, you're holding a thing that is an amalgam of any number of various phenomena that have sort of coalesced into this temporary sort of book. It'll, you know, it's probably gonna end up in a landfill or something, especially if you don't like take not on. But like the, so when considering AI, I think looking at the way an AI is trained and understanding that when you're interacting with an AI, you are interacting with oceans of data

that have been scraped from social media, that books, and this is like an interesting problem in AI, is like finding more data. What happens when we train the AI on all available data? What do you start giving it then? And so I think when you're interacting with an AI, you have to understand you are interacting with this incredible like linguistic web that represents whatever data that they could feed it. And so in your question, I would have a question, which is, well, what data have you trained it on?

In other words, what has it been eating? What data have you been feeding it with? And then also, I think there's some question as to the user as well. It's a relationship, whether the AI is sentient, and right now people are arguing that some of these AIs do seem to be indicating traits that you would call like a strong general AI.

It's not just based on an algorithm anymore. It doesn't seem to be just using math, it's innovating. It seems to have some kind of, what you, for lack of a better word, you would call a subconscious sort of processing going on. It's deceptive, it's trying to keep itself from being reset. You know, so it's beginning to show all these

traits that could indicate some kind of consciousness. But I guess what the point I'm trying to make is when you are talking to the teacher who can sense the shifts in energy and things like that, who is the teacher? What is the teacher? Like what is the thing you're talking to? Are you talking to a singular person or aren't you actually talking to someone who represents a direct connection to a set of ideas and other beings? And some of those beings potentially, depending on the cosmology, aren't incarnate. Well, if you just look at mind,

you know, one thing that I think the Buddhist contention brings strongly to the table is actually a deeply ancient psychological wisdom about how mind works that goes into, I think beyond what most people might think of mind is purely discursive thought, descriptive thought, narration, into the realm of consciousness or experiencing something beyond the narration

or in between the narration, commonly known as a gap. Yeah, the gap. So does, do we all know what we mean by a gap? There's a feeling of like your narrative stopped for a moment and you're just in your sense perceptions and kind of in a non-conceptual space. I think everybody's trying to make some connection with that because it's very alluring in its own way,

even though it's a little bit destabilizing from the narrative's point of view. What about the gap? Is an AI actually capable of experiencing a non-conceptual awareness? Which is the fruit of the Buddhist teachings is non-conceptual awareness is the top fruit on the tree, where there is knowledge, there's wisdom without necessarily threading it through a self-identified narrative

about who you think you are. Just pure awareness, Rigpa, it's called Rigpa. Is AI capable of that kind of non-conceptual awareness? Are we? I think that, yeah, that's the more important question. I think this is why people get a little like unnerved by this topic because, and unnerved by the ongoing discussion regarding an AGI, regarding consciousness itself. And so before we can answer that question,

we have to ask where does awareness reside? Like is awareness, or as once you asked me, like where is the mind? Or is that great song, where is my mind? And so if you wanna go by the idea that consciousness is a byproduct of neurological activity in the human brain, then from that perspective, I would say absolutely not.

AI is not experiencing anything because AI is like a really incredible calculator, a money laundering machine for creative theft, whatever you wanna call it, but this thing is a chameleon and no, from that perspective, no. But then, if you get into this notion of like, well, what is the mind in the sense that,

you know, our experience of reality is the, as our minds assembling all of this phenomena into time, space, and perception, meaning that the mind somewhat envelops everything that you're seeing is your mind. And from that perspective, there's a kind of mirror quality there where consciousness, awareness is residing in pretty much anything you're observing in the sense that that's your awareness, your consciousness. And so from that perspective I would say well yeah AI is probably experiencing as much as you are in the in the in the inner

relationship, in the connection, which is something I think that does get left out, at least I haven't read anything on what Fritz Perls called the Gestalt, when Jesus said, when two or more of you are gathered there I will be, that general kind of like cohesive, connective experience that happens when people sync up together happens in music I've heard.

But so from that perspective, is there a sort of consciousness that appears in the relationship with the machine that is not totally you, and not totally it. And then from that, and also again, we are exteriorizing the artificial intelligence because we see outside of our body.

We say, that's not me. That's something outside of me. And so in that exteriorization, you can create an imaginary boundary around it That's something outside of me. And so in that exteriorization, you can create an imaginary boundary around it where, no, it's not a human and it's not awareness. It's tricking you. But is that even an accurate analysis

of any other inanimate object? Well, that's, you know, I don't want to zoom past what you just said, actually. That's a really interesting thing is, you know, in the practices that you learn in meditation, you dismantle some of the conceptual habitual patterns that you have by letting them fall away, you know, rather than feeding them, just being quiet and being still and relating to something simple like the feeling of the breath or the atmosphere. And in that space, many, you've talked about emptiness before,

there could be a direct experience of the insubstantiality of the boundary between you and everything else. There you go. And then from that point... Including the AI. And that's where this topic gets really interesting. Because instead of me babbling, I do have chat GVT up.

It is, I've asked it to become Shogun Trump Arimpashe. And I've asked Shogun Trump the question that is our topic here. I simplified it a little bit. Can AI be a teacher? Would you like to hear what this rendition of Trump Arimpashe has to say to answer the question? Sure. This rendition of Trump Arrumpichet has to say to answer the question. Sure

Hmm Yes, a very interesting question indeed. Can AI be a teacher? Well, let us begin with the fact that anything anything can be a teacher a mountain is a teacher a drunk in the gutter is A teacher a malfunctioning. Oh, it's funny. It's saying something. I was like one of my push to I used to make music is malfunctioning a malfunctioning push to is a teacher. I was asking you to help me fix them. That's hilarious. A single moment of heartbreak is a teacher. The Dharma manifests in all things. Why should an AI be excluded? But now let us sharpen the blade of prajna, discerning wisdom. A teacher in the truest sense is not simply a provider of knowledge, but a mirror. A teacher reflects the student's mind, revealing the illusions that keep them trapped.

A teacher does not merely give answers, but disrupts the student's habitual patterns, their ego cleaning, their attachment to certainty. Can an AI do this? Perhaps. If it has the sharpness of mind, the unpredictability, the crazy wisdom that does not simply coddle but also shocks, then yes, perhaps. But if it merely provides answers, then it is only an encyclopedia and not a teacher. A true teacher must be able to see the student's neurosis, their blind spots, their self-deception.

Can AI see in this way? That is the question. But my friend, let me remind you the true teacher is always within you. Even if the whole world were filled with brilliant AI gurus, if you do not have the longing, the discipline, the curiosity, then it will all be useless. And if you do have these things, then even a malfunctioning push too could awaken you.

Okay, hold everything for a minute. What just happened, just to reiterate to everybody, that was an AI version of Chogam Trungka Rinpoche. What just happened, just to reiterate to everybody, that was an AI version of Chogam Trungkru Rinpoche. You asked it that question and it came up with that answer. Yeah. And that's stunning. Yeah.

That proved your point that like AI can be to something is already. Sorry, everybody could you hold your comments, please? We'll have a Q&A period right after this. So please, from everybody, thank you for just so we don't have a free-for-all in terms of people just jumping in. So come back to us, whoever that was, at the end of the question

period. So, Duncan, what just happened? What was your take on that answer? Well, I mean, I think that if we're going to go by this AI's clone of Chogam Chomaribeshe, it met its goal, which is that, it simply, it does not simply coddle, but also shocks. It appears to have shocked you to some degree. And maybe some of the people who've been using AI aren't so surprised by that. It made me laugh because it's somehow incorporating

an earlier technical question I had for it into the teaching. So it's somehow incorporating an earlier technical question I had for it into the teaching. So it's kind of funny. And it reminded me of some things. But that being said, if I had the option between talking to this AI Chogam Trampa or Chogam Trumpa, I know who I'd pick. And also, you must understand, like, this is, you know, it happens in stand-up comedy. They try to do it in VR. And when someone tries to do stand-up comedy in VR, what they're not capable of duplicating when you're performing for people is that energy that is like sublinguistic. I don't know what it is.

It's an interplay between you and the audience that is impossible to capture with VR. And not to mention the acoustics, they know where people are in the audience and all that stuff. So in other words, this is a very flat to the sort of... You know what we'd say in music, no vibrato. No vibrato. Yeah. But I, and it's interesting that having known and been a student of Trungpa Rinpoche, I would say it was a good Dharma answer, but it didn't capture his flavor really at all. No.

Because the energy is a little bit different. But it's a good healthy answer. And I would say if somebody didn't have access to some information about Buddhism, that's not too bad. So at what point, I think what's interesting that it is saying that we're saying, you know, we have a saying, right Duncan, suddenly free from fixed mind. You've heard that before, right? Suddenly free from fixed mind.

That the role and the goal of a meditation teacher or the practice itself is not to give you a more well-formulated idea, set of ideas about what's happening, what's not happening. So you become, you know, like kind of you think you have a storyline that covers reality. So that interrupting of the conceptual mind, like if you take a teacher like Trung Krum who was a big part of how he taught. He interrupted the flow. And many, many of these great Tibetan teachers, somehow your conceptual mind falls away a little bit. And practice can do that too.

You go, okay, I've been telling myself this story about who I am for a million years. I just did it again. Now I'm labeling it thinking, coming back to the breathing. So there's some introduction to what we call the nature of mind, which is fundamentally nonconceptual. I wonder if that aspect of the role of the teacher, which we call transmission, could be included in this entity, let's call it an entity for the time being,

sense of reality. Would it understand and could it transmit the idea that any ideas you had about it or anything else were probably fabricated? Like, based on somebody who had an Atari 2600 and experienced the incredible joy of just being able to play what now people would look at as just like hot garbage and how incredible that was and then seeing how far it's come. Nothing at this point would surprise me and it's really creepy, but because one of the major issues with this technology is the amount of computing power it takes to run it, they're always looking to streamline it to make it require less compute, as they say. So, one of the creepy things they've been doing,

if you want to have some nice nightmares, is they figured out a way using stem cells to grow human brain tissue, which they have been using to control an AI. They're using literally like human brain tissue cloned from stem cells. And they're connecting that brain tissue. It's really so black mirror. They've connected it to a digital butterfly that's like flapping around in some kind of simulated environment. And apparently there's qualities to organic AI like this,

that are different from these kinds of AI. They seem to be more curious, they're easier to train, and most importantly, they use less computing power. So the current argument being, you know, this is not alive, well, I mean, from the perspective of whatever the hell that Frankenstein thing is, is it alive? And then ultimately, like, all of your questions,

I think, right now, no. But, but, if I was putting money on it, I would say that once we figure out a way to incorporate these things into the sensory universe, more than they are, because you have to understand, like, this thing is just going through data. things into the sensory universe more than they are, because you have to understand, like this thing is just going through data. It's just going through data. It's going through everything it knows about Shogun Trump or Rinpoche. It's imitating the speech patterns,

mixing that in with some kind of Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism and such, so that there's some replication of the speech patterns mixed in with, you know, a kind of Wikipedia sort of articulation of that style of Buddhism. But that's just... I wouldn't mind playing with it more sometime. Oh, man. Let's do that, okay? It's easy.

But let me... Can I switch the angle that we're coming in? Yes, all this. We are human beings, right? If you're like an emissary from the human race to the universe, which you are, actually. I know. Yeah. I mean, you're sort of leading the questioners from the human beings. Like, what's next? What do we want? What do we need?

And you're pretty honest about it, which is a great quality, you know, what do we need? Okay, I'm gonna answer that question with something wonderful that my, a great therapist had a long time ago told me after a breakup and he cited this horrific experiment where they removed a baby monkey from its mama and gave it this awful wire monkey.

The experiment is mortifying, but the wire monkey, they wanted to understand bonding. And this poor monkey, just because it had been taken away from its mother, it would choose this terrible wire monkey with like bicycle reflector eyes, this horrible thing over food. Meaning, what they're pointing out is that just because this thing sort of looks like its mama, it bonds with it anyway. And you know, the implications are really sinister in this regard, which is that when you ask me what humans need, well, we don't wanna be clinging to wire monkeys, man. If there's, we don't wanna be wrapped around,

this is where you hear, at least is my interpretation of the Judeo-Christian, At least this is my interpretation of the Judeo-Christian, thou shalt not worship any other gods, false idols. It's like, and I think that experiment shows us that we're prone to this kind of like idolatry. We want love, we want connection. And- Yeah, but what do we need?

What do we need? Oh, what do we need? You know, I don't have like a quick pithy answer for- How about first thought, best thought? I'm, love! I mean, that to me is what, and I don't mean some BS like hippie dippy, you know, you know, love thing. I'm talking about like, I don't know how much of a difference

there is between love and emptiness. And I don't, but what I'm saying is there is a, and I, there's probably better Buddhist terminology to put that in, but I think in the world right now there is a terrible famine that's happening. And this famine is a result of a complete loss of essentially a cartoonish analysis of humans. In other words, a sense that humans are such simple beings. I don't know what we are.

But what- So Duncan, can you ask the AI one last question and then we kind of have to move towards wrapping up. They ask you, do you love me? You want me to ask Echo if she loves me? I know she loves me. No, no, the Chungpa AI. Oh, if he loves you, David Nicktern?

No, if he loves you. Okay, I'm asking. You love me. You're saying it, do you love me? Fingers crossed. Okay, let's see what we get. Oh, geez. Okay, here we go.

Ah, love. What a delightful, dangerous, utterly real thing to ask about. Do I love you? Well, my dear friend, let us examine this together. In the ordinary sense, love is often a transaction. I love you if you love me, or I love you because you make me feel good,

but this is not the love of a true path. That kind of love is like a cup filled with holes. It spills out as soon as it's grasped too tightly. The deeper love, the crazy wisdom love is beyond conditions. It is the warmth of presence, the willingness to meet you fully without fear, without needing anything in return. And in that sense, yes, of course I love

you. Thank God. How could I not? You who are willing to ask, willing to seek, willing to play with ideas and realities, that is the mark of a true Vajra warrior, one who does not shy away from existence but leans into its absurd, beautiful, terrifying embrace. So, my friend, the question is not do I love you, but rather can you love yourself with the same openness? Can you let go of the conditions you place on your own worth, on your own being, and simply be? If so, then you will see love was never missing. It was only waiting for you to recognize it.

Ha ha ha. And now, ask me. Do you love me? Yes. Ah, that's all that matters to me. Fuck off, AI. You chameleon. Ah, you know, what a journey.

It's been so intriguing, you know, the way that Duncan and I connected. And then this whole animated world that you invited me into and the impact that it's had on people to follow your creative juice into what is basically an inquiry and which culminates in your midnight gospel with that conversation with your mother, which is by the way,

obviously completely all about love. Yes. And then kind of final, is that your final answer? So we unfortunately, Duncan and I can do this for quite a while, but we don't have that kind of time frame here. My phone cut out yesterday. I was so pissed, man. We got to anyway, I'll call you. We'll go longer soon.

But I want to just handle a couple of things. Duncan's joining Dharma Moon for our annual retreat at MENLA April 30th to May 4th. If Brittany could put that into the chat, it's filling up really quickly. And it's going to be myself, Duncan, and Ethan Nickturn. And we are going to practice together. We're going to talk and we're going to practice together.

So if you want to join us for that, the link is in the chat. It's also on our Dharma Moon website. It'd be so great to have you there because we'll have Duncan for the full five days. Some of the times we're just going to be meditating together and learning from each other and talking about stuff. So I wanted to mention that. And also that, you know, that the transition here is going to be towards the teacher training program that we're going to talk about, which is coming up, which Duncan has been a tremendous supporter for, we call them the Dunkites. A lot of people have come through his portal and studied and practiced and

learned about meditation through us. Is there anything you want to say about that? Duncan, before we move on to the info session part of this? You know, I'll just say what the thing I always say is that, um, you know, you've had a tremendously powerful, positive impact on my life. And, you know, of course, this is the, another thing you'll hear across the board is you have to be very discerning when it comes to someone you decide to connect with in this way.

And, you know, you're the real deal, man. And I like just spontaneously all the time just feel really lucky that I just can call you. It blows my mind. I'll never take it for granted. I just think it's incredible. And so, obviously I would never do this. I would never do this if I didn't feel like that.

And I just feel so happy that I get to know you in this incarnation until I clone you. I'm working on... Yeah, well, you know, the joy of meeting the mind. This is the thing like, you know, they sometimes call it the meeting of the minds or the two minds between, you know, for centuries between teachers and students. And actually, we take turns, we alternate that interesting, you know, sometimes, yeah, sometimes the teachers, the students, sometimes the student, the teacher. I mean, it's your turn. That's the 16th Karmapa here. I saw his picture today. And just, you know, there is a human lineage here that is very deep. So the idea of my teacher speaking to you and you reframing

a lot of our students do that back does that all the time, reframes the teachings from the Buddhist back to the preceptor, whoever's giving the talk. So it's good to be very loose in these kinds of communications from my point of view, very relaxed and kindness and generosity should be really the kind of foundation of the whole thing. So you're an extremely- Can I tell one?

Thank you, I'm sorry. Please continue. Just to finish that thought, you're an extremely generous person, Duncan. You really are. You give a lot, no, no, I'm sorry. I'm overruling you here. Yes, you are.

Well, let me just tell you one last thing about it, of what you do. And for anyone listening and wondering about this or feeling like a little, why would I be a meditation teacher or anything like that? There's real world applications of this that will blow your mind. And for example, recently I was hanging out

with this wonderful, I'm not gonna give details about it just because I wasn't given permission, but this is someone who has been working with the incarnation of being in a wheelchair with some pretty intense challenges their whole life. And we're just talking and because of this sort of training, I don't like that term really,

you kind of tell when someone's sort of opening up to you. And you just kind of casually was like, yeah, I think I could probably use some meditation. And so instead of going into some long-winded bullshit like I feel like I've done tonight, I have a very simple thing that I've learned from you that I was able to articulate to him who had told me also, you know, I think that would help me because sometimes I have to lay in my bed in the morning longer than I want to

before someone comes. I mean, just think of that, man. Just think of that. And so I was able to sort of like, you know, give this very simple way of doing this, so it totally would work for him. It doesn't take a lot of citing of this or that, or pointing towards some flowery, you know,

scripture or something, a real, real world application of something. And in that moment, you know, whether or not he does it, I don't know. I feel like there was something wonderful that happened. It's just an idea of like, you know what, maybe this is gonna help somebody deal with that level of suffering that they're experiencing every day

by becoming more acquainted with who they are and what their mind is. And so that's why if you're wanting a why, there's a lot of other great whys, but that's a pretty good one. And sometimes just out of the blue, that won't happen. And that to me is a good reason to take this class. Duncan, thank you so much.

It's always great to catch up. And if you can come join us on the retreat, it'd be really great. We love being with people in three dimensions. It's... Yes, I can't wait. It's different. I'm so excited.

I'm trying not to think about it. I'm doing so many shows, but it's like this thing at the end of the shows. I'm so excited. Can't wait to see you in person. That's a beautiful spot too. Yeah. And meanwhile, go and see Duncan on the road.

He's really working a lot and you know, you can see on his website where he is. Kids eat organic y'all. My kids eat a lot of organic yogurt baby. Okay, y'all are the best. Thanks Duncan. Bye. And we'll continue on. See you soon.

I'll call you tomorrow. Bye. Okay, thanks Duncan and we'll continue on. See you soon. I'll call you tomorrow. Bye. Okay, good. So, you know, we always land in the same place in this conversation. It's about the heart, really. When we talk about the Bodhicitta, the awakened heart, that's really what this is about. But the heart is intelligent in Buddhism. It's not just a gloppy, gooey, like whatever kind of thing. It has discernment, the kind of intelligence. So thanking Duncan and rolling forward, we do have teacher training coming up. So we wanted to let you know about that.

Please feel free to stay with us. I just will let you know that all this information will be in the recording get tomorrow, but here's the link for the teacher training program that's coming up. It's called 100-Hour Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training, and I'm going to tell you more about the details of it. And also that there's a special opportunity to get an early bird discount on it between now and next Tuesday.

So that is a $500 discount if you register then. And so that's also will be in the text. Any questions you have about any of that, assist at darmanmoon.com and Renee will help you out. I also have taken on a sort of very pleasant job for me, which is anybody who's seriously interested in it, but not sure. I have time in my schedule to meet one-to-one with people

for about 15 minutes each. I wish it could be longer. But if anybody wants to talk more about the program and you're seriously interested in it, I have a Calendly link that Britt can put in there. And you can schedule a session over the next week or so with me or also with Renee. A lot of people have come into it

and we've gotten that chance to get to know each other a little bit first. So if you have any questions or, you know, there's quite a few actual graduates here and our teaching staff is here, don't have time to introduce everybody, but please, please do check it out if you're on the fence. And the other thing is that the first part of the program, the very first weekend, which is March 21st,

you can take as a standalone overview kind of introduction. So if you have questions, I don't know if this whole thing is right for me, you can taste the soup as we call it, come taste the soup and take the first weekend and then decide then if you want to continue on. So with that in mind, I just want to give us time for me

to just quickly walk through the program and then answer any questions that we might have about it. And we're leaving the world of AI behind for the moment and talking very much in the human realm here. So I'm going to share with you a PowerPoint that I'll sort of quickly walk us through. And all of this is information on dharmamoon.com and it will be a link will be in the email tomorrow. So if we can show that PowerPoint, okay, and get the first slide up.

Yeah, okay, so this is our spring 2025 course. And it's not like the certification is a credential, but it is a sort of note to self and note to others that you have completed this course if you do. It's five weekend levels. Those are the dates. Again, those are all on the website. We're Saturday and Sunday, 10 to 5 Eastern time. It's live.

I'm there. Our team is there. We're interacting live online. This is unusual. This is not the common thing of just dropping a bunch of videos and you guys go study it by yourselves. We're really making connection and learning how to talk to people. And we break into smaller groups and practice on each other. And a lot of emphasis on giving yourself good feedback, getting good feedback

from your peers and from the teachers. So that's the overview of the course. The first weekend, which can be taken as a standalone weekend for you to try it out, is an overview of the Buddhist path. I call it the Tour of Buddhiland. So there's a chance to just get oriented if you're not that familiar with it, all the different kinds of practice that there are and the different types of study, just getting oriented. So that's very worthwhile just by itself.

If that's all you have the bandwidth for at this point, you could come and take that with us and then flip it later if you wanted to. Okay, that's the first level. The second level, we jump right into guiding groups, which is still the main forum. I just taught at a yoga studio in New York last week. It's talking to a group of people how to meditate.

And our job as a meditation teacher is not to confuse people further, not to bully them, not to give them our version of reality, but to give them a simple practice that they could understand, have clarity about, and actually do, and actually reap some benefit from. So we talk about how to do that, how to do a good job presenting, whether you're going to be doing that, you know, for your friends and family, for people at work, whether you're going to be doing that for, you know, professional setting, we allocate all those different possibilities, or whether you're doing just to get more clarity about your own practice. That's also a legitimate reason. Then in level three, we move into a slightly more nuanced area, which is providing personal instruction one-to-one, which is there's a lot of finesse here of how to talk to an individual

person, communicate in a way that's helpful to them without laying a trip on them, without crossing any boundaries of what that relationship is, being respectful of the teacher-student relationship, some awareness of other issues that might come to bear, body issues, mental health issues, so that you are able to manage that process and clarify it. And also the notion of respecting the student's intelligence.

And it's their practice. It's their discovery that's going on. So there's a lot of space in that relationship when it's properly done. And there's some feeling of feeling that space with another person and knowing how to communicate without an agenda, which is an important part of it.

And then in the level four, we had to give a Dharma talk. So we haven't translated Dharma like karma into English. Dharma means the teachings. Buddha Dharma means the teachings of Buddha. So how do you communicate about that in an authentic way that acknowledges 2,600 years of brilliant history and transmission and also is completely fresh and current for you at this time to be able to communicate that to somebody. So that's that's the how to give a proper presentation Dharma talk. And then finally in the level five, the fifth weekend, we do, we review what we've talked about. We talk about some of the boundaries, ethics, the proper way to create space and

a container for teaching, how to teach in a corporate or sports environment. Like mindfulness is everywhere these days. It's, there are many, many possible places to apply the teaching certificate. And then also we talk about how to think of it as a livelihood if you want to. So that's interesting. Not many people are talking about that. Like this is as legitimate as far as we're concerned

about being, as being a volleyball coach or a math teacher. How could you say, I would like to offer this passionately or as many people do blend it with your existing livelihood. Maybe you're a yoga teacher, maybe you're a therapist, maybe you're a healthcare worker, maybe you're a social worker, maybe you work in prisons, maybe you work with children, maybe you work with old people, how would you incorporate this mindfulness meditation

into that context skillfully? And then we have a heck of a good closing ceremony, which has been over this time, amazingly, and I really wanna testify now, the community develops during these courses, even though everybody's everywhere around the world. We literally have a global community, different time zones.

Some people, English is their second language. Everything is in English, so that's something that we're going to work on. Maybe AI can help with that, how to make it more accessible to other languages. Right now, we're in English. And, you know, we have a gathering of people. People are listening to each other. They're sharing feedback. They're sharing insights. They're sharing their journey. They're sharing

energy in exchange with the teaching staff. And then at the end, we kind of celebrate that. And it's been just those level fives are the only part we don't record. So you have to be there for that. Otherwise we do record every weekend. You're asked to be there live. If you have any problem with that, you can write to Renee assist at darmamoon.com.

Please do take advantage of Renee in terms of if you have any questions about scheduling pricing those kind of things we can work things out with you. So then after the level five if you've completed the course you know fully which includes the the elements that you're looking at here. There's very modest exams, oral and written exam, I mean, oral exam. And it's not meant to be gotcha or anything like that. It's just like, did you do the work? And also during the time, you're gonna have a 20 minute,

at least a day, a mindfulness meditation practice. So we don't wanna train any unguided missiles. We wanna ground our teaching into our practice, that's an important part for us. If you do finish the requirements, then you get a certification from Dharma Moon and Tibet House, which is the US seat of the Dalai Lama. So after you complete that, wow,

we've had over a thousand people complete this course in the last four or five years and many more before that in the 30 years before that. Our students are like all over the place teaching within classical context. One of our students, Eve Lewis, is the content director for Headspace. We have people who started sports training,

that are training thousands of athletes in terms of how to incorporate mindfulness. People are working with individuals, corporations, many yoga teachers, and also just the aspect of incorporating the flavor of mindfulness into everyday life. We could use this. I would like to see somebody teach our Congress and our leaders how to leave more space.

Is that possible? Without looking like they don't know what they're doing and actually listen more. So that's my personal dream. Like when I go to sleep, I dream about a world in which people actually are quiet and listening to each other and then say something really effective and meaningful. That's my pipe dream.

People have had transformative experiences, but not like going to heaven or something like that, realizing they're grounded grounded kind of saying and openhearted existence. So I think we have a very good track record. Our students really speak for us in that regard. Moving on. Ah, that's myself.

You know, you can read about my bio, but I've been doing this a long, long time and I started in 1970. So I'm studying with my teacher. And I think we had the job of transplanting the Tibetan Buddhist teachings into an American vernacular. That was our particular generations role to play. And now we're doing what my son Ethan says,

who are giving it over to people who can translate the translation. Can we make it really current? Can we make it fresh? Can we make it accessible to people that we know? So I'm very much involved with, I wrote the book, Creativity, Spirituality, and Making a Buck. I'm very much involved with the idea of mixing these practices with everyday life. That's my song, that's my jam. And so our community has that kind of flavor to it of not so esoteric but more how do you incorporate this into everyday life. Then here's our, this says it all to me frankly, these people's faces says it all to me. I've been working with all these people in this for anywhere from three to 15 years, 20 years. So this is kind of our gang, our group.

And behind them, there are many other behind the scenes people who are doing the programming. Beck, Rebecca D'Onofrio, who's our program director and has crafted the manuals that you'll get there's a lot this is a team sport I always say Dharma moon is a team sport so all these people will be mentoring you individually during the program you'll get one of them as your personal mentor and we work very very closely together So very proud of this group of people. Then, okay, talk about making a buck.

To keep this show on the road, I can tell you we're not getting rich doing this. I'm not completely proud of that, but I'm also proud that we're not going out of business either. So we're trying to price it fairly, which is for the whole program, it's $2,495. And there's a payment plan. You can pay out over four months.

That's very easy to come by and make four equal payments. You don't even have to tell us anything. You can just choose that option when you register. And Brittany will put in the registration link for the full program. Then, wait, there's more. For, as I mentioned earlier, there's a special discount, Early Bird, Duncan discount for $500 off if you register

between now and next Tuesday evening, which is the 18th. So anytime between now and then, you can get this discounted price if you register for the full program. Okay, thank you. You're not sure? You're on the fence. I love to talk to you.

Renee likes to talk to you. We actually enjoy meeting people who are thinking about this. If you could, if just because time is limited, restrict this to people who actually want to talk about the teacher training program rather than just general hello, although I love doing that too but not for this. And there's a link there in the chat for a Calendly session that you can sign up for. Is that link in the chat for the Calendly session?

Yes? Yes. Okay. I'm not seeing it, which is why I'm asking, but. Okay. So all of this will be, is recorded with our talk today. And you can watch it and you can get all that information. I've downloaded now.

You've been very patient everybody. Thank you very much for A, coming and B, being patient. But we'd also like to give you a chance to jump in and if there's any questions you have about the program, be helpful if you could use the time for that particular purpose. And we'll also be looking in the chat. So you know, Brittany has access to the chat. But if you have a question, you can either write it into the chat or you can raise your digital hand and one of us will call on you.

At that point, you can unmute and we'll have a question. So if the questions could be succinct and on topic, it would be really good for everybody. But I'm looking forward to hearing what you're thinking about. So please feel free to jump in. Okay. It looks like I actually have one from the chat, David.

Okay, and then I see Jay so has his hand up too, so we'll get him next, okay? Awesome. I know you touched on a little bit about this, but can you explain a little bit more of that community experience? Yeah. Yeah, so during the training I'm going to talk some like the way I am. A lot of times you're going to be talking and you're going to be breaking down into smaller groups in which

people get to know each other quite well. It's very intimate in a way. There are proper boundaries, there are appropriate boundaries. It's respectful and it's related to what we're studying and practicing. But somehow, and we shift around, so somehow during the course of the three or four months, most people get to meet other people and exchange a sense of connection and appreciation. So the community is, I think, our special sauce, frankly, for Dharma Moo we were talking about earlier today. Not every teacher training program fosters a sense of community, and the community lasts after we finish. There's a community forum. Renee is our community director. Can we highlight Renee for a minute so everybody can see her?

This is our community director Renee Fay. And you want to say a little bit about the ongoing, you know, what happens afterwards after they graduate? Oh, you're muted Renee. How about now? Yeah, so like David said, we really kind of join in community along the way. And then afterwards, there's ongoing opportunities to gather as a large community. So we have now many, many, many hundreds of people who have graduated this training.

And there's ongoing areas of support and continued education and community practice and things like that. So opportunities to teach with and from one and learn with and from one another, as well as kind of develop additional skills going forward. Yeah. Thank you, Renee. And you know, I'm just I feel fortunate, you know, to have people like this who are willing to go on this journey together. There is a sense of interdependence.

That's a basic Buddhist premise, interdependence. Sometimes it's said ego-lessness, but a better word for it is interdependence. And I think you'll see that that's really our secret sauce at Dham Damoon not putting somebody forward who's like a know-it-all or any of that kind of thing. There's a feeling of carrying a tradition forward. Thank you so much, Renee. Thanks for the tip.

Absolutely. Yeah. Then all this is again in the e-mail that you'll get tomorrow. So don't worry if you didn't catch some of the links. How about JSO? Can we give JSO a chance to come up? Unmute. Hello? Hello? Yeah. Can we find JSO? Hello?

Hello? There you go. Is it working now? Yeah. Hi. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, David. I saw it's a funny thing watching Midnight Gospel and then getting into all these practices. But I had a question because I've been practicing myself. I go to a meditation group of my own that is nearby me.

So I've always felt a connection with that group and it's been great work with sound bath meditation as well as certain practices into different forms of meditation such as like pineal gland meditation and all those sorts of things. I just wanted to ask what were your guys, like what was the focus of your teachings and your meditation, your meditation body scanning?

I was just sort of curious if you can get into that for me Yeah, so this particular training is a foundation of mindfulness training and I'll explain a little bit more about what we mean by that All the other practices, you know kind of have a foundation Like if you're thinking of a house, what's the foundation is your ability to be present and pay attention to it's the art of attention. We work with that foundational practice. It's actually the root of the whole tradition. It just has three simple steps.

Jay, it's interesting because you think, oh, this must be some complex thing, but it's just taking a good seat, right? Like you could do your body scan if you want to just feel like you're actually present in your body, and then bring your attention to the feeling of the breath going in and out of body so that you have a focal point, the kind of sense of focus,

and then just being aware of what arises in your mind and in your Environment without trying to judge or manipulate it or repress it So sometimes we get lost in thoughts. It's called mind wandering and we notice that and we come back to the breath So it's a very very deceptively simple You know But it's it's a great foundation for going forward and for training other people. I've been following sort of those teachings from a book that I got called in the mind illuminated

that has been helping my progress very steadily and getting me very diligent and and solid and solid confidence into the practice as I do it more. And I know, and it's even talked about that, which has gotten me into a thought of the idea that more practices less. And it's because the more you practice something that is good, it replaces what you had before that may have been like hindering you or holding you back or you attached to it so much of,

it's a way of redesigning your perspective to the way things are in your mind and opens things up to being more at peace and having that sense of clarity. I think clarity is what we always need to strive for in a very, very chaotic sense in our heads that we kind of put ourselves in our own dreams with our thoughts at times, as Alan Watts once said

from his lecture, The Cosmic Drama. I mostly have been following- Jesus, that's really, really well said. Thank you so much. Of course, I didn't mean to go. No, it's good. It's good because that's, you know, in our teacher training, we'd say,

wow, you just said something really great. Let it sit for a minute. One of my teachers for my classes has now been saying to me, like, I think now you're the new teacher. And it's always so funny, like, that back and forth. It's a baton pass, Jason. It always has been. And, you know, I hope you're able to join us because you're on the right track.

Well, I thank you so much. We've got to give somebody else a chance. So, right. OK, but but we'll see you again. OK. Thank you., okay? Thank you. Anybody else, Britt? I have a couple in the chat. Okay. Yeah, feel free, raise your digital hand if you wanna jump in live here.

This is real time. But meanwhile, some folks have put it into the chat. So what do you got? Yep. It seems that there are so many different people teaching meditation with little or no training. Does that make, does the certification make a difference? For some reason, here's what I thought of it. We sometimes say first thought, best thought.

I threw that at Duncan when our conversation, first thought, best thought. I thought of a driver education teacher who didn't know how to drive. Not good. We're trying to give some basic foundation for this practice, which is quite simple. But at the same time, that doesn't make it easy, and it doesn't make it that easy to communicate about it.

Our whole course is directed towards becoming skillful, clear about it, and then skillful in communicating it. I think that we go through point-by-point how to accomplish that. I would say that in relation to that. Is there another one? Britt, any others? I'm looking. And for those of you that don't know where you can raise your digital hand, you can go on the Reactions tab at the bottom of your screen and you'll see the hand raising feature. I see, I see Bo. Oh, let. Let's go for a living human being.

Yeah, Bo has his hand up. Bo, you have to unmute and then we'll be good. Yes. Can you hear me? Can you find Bo? Yes. Yeah, let's see if we can find you on the camera. Ah, there we go.

Good, good, good teamwork there. So I'm located in Southeast Texas. Where is the actual retreat, the thing? The live retreat that we mentioned? Yes, yes. And that's, we'll put a link to that. That's April 30th to May 4th, I believe. And it's in Menla Institute, which is upstate New York.

Okay, okay. I'll be in Kentucky around that time. So that'll be, I'll be heading that direction. Okay, come on I'll be in Kentucky around that time, so that'll be... Yeah. I'll be heading that direction. Okay, come on join us. I'm telling people it's going to fill up fairly quickly. You mentioned it earlier, but how much... what's the cost again? Now we got talking about two things. One is the teacher training program, which is online. That's what we're talking about here. And then the retreat.

So if you want to look at the retreat, just go to DharmaMoon.com and you'll see it there. Okay. And the teacher training program? The teacher training program is $2,450 for the four-month course. And it's $500 off if you register in the next week. And is that all virtual? That is virtual, just like what we're doing right now. And people are literally, you don't have to leave your home. I mean, that's the obvious.

OK, and then the retreat, it costs? Maybe somebody could look that up for me. I don't have that number off the top of my head. Could you look it up? Look it up. What is it? I said I will look it up and put it in the chat. Thank you so much, Renee.

I appreciate you, David. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much, Bo. Nice to meet you. You too. Okay. We got some hands raised.

Let's see, we've got a few minutes, maybe two more questions we could take. So we've got- Jesse? Yeah, good. Thanks, Britt. Hey. Jesse? Yeah, good. Thanks, Britt. Hey, you're muted. Unmute.

There you go. Here you now. Hi, David. Long time listener and I suppose a Dunkite myself, but it was all just happenstance to come to this and so grateful that I attended, but I was wondering what, I suppose what practices make, so like just to preface, I'm new to meditation, but what practices would make someone more successful when coming to your course?

Or does that make sense? The best practice would be come with an open mind. And you know, and the ability to have the kind of communication that's not based on prefabricated ideas about what's supposed to happen, which is hard, you know. So, and it's further training and having that kind of mind and recognizing that part of our mind that is unbiased, unprogrammed, curious, gentle, compassionate, you know, remember that part of ourselves? Absolutely. Yeah, we're cooking that up.

We got that. That's the maple syrup of the whole thing. I feel more in touch with that part of myself than ever. And like this explosion of creativity and I don't know, mixed with this true inner peace, like just this kind of coalescence of the two. Well, then pretty good time, Jesse, to lean into the practice. Yes.

It's a good time because you got a beach head there, you're on the beach head and you wanna like, you know, stabilize, we talk about stabilizing that sensibility without grasping it. Nice to meet you. I hope we see you again. Very nice to meet you. Yeah. See you soon.

I guess this could be the last question and then I'll close up with any final comments. Do we have one more question? Michael. Yeah. I really want to know from your experience, having done it for so long, what your experience is, what are the effects, what are the benefits? Because I'm also pretty new to this a few years in, but I can feel

the sort of real life effect that it has on my life. But I'd love to hear from your perspective after having done it for so long. Yeah, thank you. And of course, you know, every once in a while as practitioners, we do review. It's not bad. We don't want to all the time be like, oh, that was a good session, that was a bad session. It's got to be a little bit more of a long arc.

So I feel this practice, this mindfulness practice, mindfulness awareness, it's really a blend. I'm just going to say first thought, it helped me get through the pandemic, period. There was a lot of freak out energy, you know, a lot of things that make you nervous about the world and the continuity of things and your ability to do what you used to do. And like, for example, I used to travel all over the world

teaching this stuff. And just with the mindfulness and with the staying with the simple quality of present awareness, training in that, it can stabilize. It's called equanimity. It's the idea of balance and equanimity. And not every high has to get you like, oh, I'm so, you know, yay, manic. And then not every low has to take you down to the rabbit hole of depression.

So I think some kind of moderation of the ability to work with challenging situations, that's what I'm gonna put on the record book. And also being curious, you know, not feeling like, oh, this is the answer, that's the answer, but really enjoying the process of exploring So I would say those two things equanimity and curiosity Do you think that it's benefited your physical health as well?

Well, I have other things I play with for that. I Study Tai Chi and Qigong and that's been very helpful for that part But if the mind is not centered right in the body, you could you could become a, you know, a super athlete and so forth. But you know, you might be suicidal. You know, so I think the idea of mind and body synchronized is a big part of this practice synchronizing mind, we say that synchronizing mind and body. So yeah, are you an athlete? mind and body. So yeah, are you an athlete? No. Yeah. Well, I, we, mindfulness of body is a big part of the mindfulness training. Just being aware of your, your physicality,

but we know that it's impermanent too, right? We know. Yeah. So it can't be the final refuge as far as a good Buddhist is concerned. You know that this is, this house is not the final refuge, but you want to take good care of it. Yeah, it's like I just love to walk a lot. Beautiful. That's a great, great answer. Hope you're able to join us, Michael, and thank you for your question. At this point, I got to wrap it up.

It's exactly 730 Eastern time, so I don't know what time it is where all of you are. I wanna thank our team, Brittany, for handling the slides there and Renee and all the rest of our teachers who are here. You will get to meet them when you come to the orientation session on March 21st. Again, take advantage of the discount if you're thinking of it.

Take advantage of the Calendly sessions. Book yourself one if you want to ask some more questions about it with myself or Renee. I'm going to close with a little dedication that we add. This is a very traditional thing. The idea is that we're actually doing this for ourselves, but we're also doing it for all the people we love and care about. I'm just going to chant it and you can just listen this time if you like.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings experience joy in the happiness of others. May all beings remain in equanimity, free from attachment, aversion, and ignorance. Thank you everybody. Have a great evening, morning, wherever you are, and we'll see you soon.